A day without a laptop

On may 8th I attended the 18th annual region 10 tech conference. I came armed with 3 tools, an iPhone, an iPad and a pen(which I immediately lost). I didn’t feel like lugging my backpack/laptop around all day so I left it at home. I was never at a loss to take notes, tweet, text, and make the occasional phone call. It got me thinking could I do this in my classroom for a day. So I got back to the school the next day and gave it a whirl. I brought the laptop, in case of an emergency, but didn’t turn in on.

Disclaimer: I have a Bluetooth keyboard I used with the iPad and I think for anyone willing to take this leap or try this it is as must.

The day was a fairly calm one as the students were doing research for their presentations which were the following day. I was able to accomplish all the tasks I normally do on my PC on the iPad with little to no trouble.

Things that were a breeze
-taking attendance
– sending emails
-doing research
-typing on the keyboard

Things that made me long for my PC
-data entry: grades, attendance, student information
– pressing the screen to send an email
– physically touching the a text box before I could enter my text
– instinctively reaching for my mouse to navigate
– closing out of an app instead of switching to a new tab

I definitely think this is something that teachers and districts can look into. I hesitate to say go ahead and I’d be in because showing presentations or videos requires a little more horsepower and some more tech. For everything else why not have a tool you can pick up and take to a students desk to show them some enrichment materials or something easily portable for on the go access. I think the easier it is to carry the more likely people can incorporate it into their routine and workflow.

ps: I typed this post on the iPad using the virtual keyboard and it only took about 20 minutes.